


the city sun sets over me

by slybrunette



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-04
Updated: 2009-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:58:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slybrunette/pseuds/slybrunette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New York City. In another life, one of boy meets girl, this would be a classic. Instead it's just confusion and words that don't add up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the city sun sets over me

(This is before)

\---

Things that go as planned:

Oceanic Flight 815 lands safely in LAX, right on schedule.

They check into their hotel, something oversized and full of huge windows. The word luxury serves as an understatement here, but it's all she's really known for far too long.

Jin has some secret meeting in the morning, one that he's rather vague about, and she smiles and kisses him goodbye.

Things that don't go as planned:

She takes the money she stashed away from her failed exit strategy and uses some of it to buy a last minute plane ticket.

"Where to, miss?"

"Where is the first open flight going to?"

"New York City."

Sun nods, repeats, "New York City."

Her cell phone winds up in the nearest garbage receptacle, traded in for a cheap pay-as-you-go one, and she pays for everything in cash. This is her getaway.

\---

At a very young age, Sun learned all about how important connections really were.

Here, she has no one. Here, she is no one.

Here, she stays in the cheapest hotel that she can find with a vacancy and buys a map of New York City, traces a finger over street names and lets her eyes trace that same route over a map of the Subway system.

Here, without all those connections and money and weight to her name, put there by her father, she can finally do whatever she wants.

The irony does not go unnoticed.

\---

The Seventh Avenue Express takes her into Manhattan in the morning.

The man next to her, button down white dress shirt, expensive watch, reads his morning newspaper, precariously balancing his coffee. A group of teenagers -- one girl, two boys -- talk in whispered tones, the girl briefly wrapping one long bare leg around the pole she's hanging onto, a joke about stripper poles between friends, before she drops it and looks around to see if anyone saw her. Only the older woman in the corner, almost out of Sun's sightline, shakes her head.

A boy, nine or ten, in the seat right next to the doors, comic book in hand, glances her way but drops his eyes when she catches him.

Half a dozen people get off where she's decided to stop, an old address of an older friend, one whose current whereabouts she isn't sure match the ones she has written down, held in her hand. The boy is one of them, and he is the one who catches her attention, specifically the way his head snaps as a man yells, "Walt."

The boy's shoulders drop, and yet he starts moving towards the man. It must be his son, she deduces, shifting her eyes between the two of them. The man catches her gaze on him, and to her surprise he smiles, white teeth bright against dark skin. It's small but it's there, and it's the first smile that's greeted her in New York other than the plastic one of the airplane stewardess.

It's endearing but she moves on, pulling out her map to examine as she tries to figure out what direction she needs to head in, as she half-listens to the man and the boy, Walt. And then she heads up the stairs to the street and tries to get her bearings.

Sun doesn't know exactly how long she's out there, but several people pass her by as she glances around at unfamiliar landmarks, and then:

"Can I help you?"

Once more, her eyes find those of the man from before. He stands with a hand on Walt's shoulder, protective in a way that the boy seems to want no part of. There's something awkward about their body language that makes her reconsider her earlier assessment that they were father and son.

She opens her mouth to speak, but instead holds out the paper in her hands. "I am looking for this address."

The man glances at the hastily written street address, and points to their right, "You're going to want to go straight down there for two blocks, make a left and go for three, and then another left and that should get you there."

It makes more sense than the map ever did, to put it in such simplistic terms. She runs the directions over again in her mind, making sure she's got it. "Two lefts?"

"Two lefts," he confirms, another smile, and then, "Might want to take a better look at the Subway routes -- there's a stop that gets you a lot closer."

Her instinct is to reach for the map and have him point it out to her, but she figures her friend is more than capable of that and she's taking up enough of his time already, so she only says, "Thank you --"

Sun would add his name, if she knew it. Instead, it reads as an awkward pause, an unfinished sentence.

"Michael," he supplies, a moment later, sensing what she stumbled over. He offers the hand that isn't holding onto the boy. "And this is my son, Walt."

"Sun," she says, shaking his hand and giving a warm smile to Walt, even if she already knew his name. His lips turn up at the corners, a little, almost in spite of himself, and it's more than he appears to have given his father. "I should be going but thank you again, Michael."

"Yeah," he replies, "maybe I'll see you around."

"Maybe." There isn't much hope behind that word; she isn't sure New York is where she'll stay, just that it's where she is right now. Nothing is definite for her, not really, and it's a feeling that she relishes, the unfamiliarity of it.

On the subway ride back to her hotel that night, she thinks of him anyway.

 

***

 

(This is after)

\---

New York is business and nothing more.

Everything, these days, is business.

\---

There is a man, white-haired and well-dressed, money, and paperwork that bears various signatures.

There's more to that, more details and reasons, but there is also a little girl at home who misses her mother, and vengeance to be had, so she really wants to get there and get out.

Still, her flight leaves at eight the next morning, and she has a night to herself in New York City, a place that she's never been and always wanted to see.

The observation deck of Rockefeller Center gives her as much of an opportunity to see the skyline as anything else will.

\---

Sun watches the colored lights dance, a mix of purples, blues, reds, and greens, through the glass roof of the elevator. It's almost enough to make her forget the shifting underneath her feet, rising higher with every passing second. The feeling reminds her a bit of flying, in a way that she prefers not to be reminded.

The car comes to an abrupt stop, and she looks down as the doors slide open, her solo ride to the top now over. Her eyes follow the footfalls of the man who enters, listening as the doors come to a close once more. All at once, she can feel him staring at her, uncomfortably so, and she lets her eyes shift back up to the lights in one smooth motion, never seeing the man's face. She isn't curious; she's uncomfortable.

It's silent as they climb one floor, then two, then three, then, "They do a pretty good job of making you forget you're stuck in a little steel box that could stop at any time."

There is no question, merely an observation, but that isn't what's important here. What's important is the pair of eyes that lock on hers. "Michael," she says, simply. Her voice is not breathy, full of shock and awe. She knows all about the ghosts, about Hurley's visions of Charlie, about Jack's steady decline over things he cannot see or control. His name is merely acknowledgement, and she adds, just for the record, "You are dead."

He shrugs. Carelessly. "Makes more sense than anything else."

It is neither an admission nor a denial, and she isn't quite sure what to do with that, or with him. Sun tries, "what are you doing here?"

"I live here. New York City, remember?" There was a conversation about this, what feels decades ago. She remembers she was folding clothes. She can't remember the day or if it was sunny or cloudy or the look on his face, but she remembers her hands and their near mechanical ministrations over a pile of laundry.

For too long, there is nothing but silence, and she is sure elevator rides don't take this long. "Aren't you going to ask what I am doing here?"

"You said I'm dead right?" She nods, if only to make him continue. "Guess that would make me all knowing too."

"So you are dead."

Once again, he doesn't answer, this time making quick work of changing the subject. "Hey, how's Jin?"

Her eyes narrow, on instinct, and her fingers are locked against the cool metal wall of the elevator, bent awkward at the knuckles. There's nothing to hold onto, to squeeze, in frustration or anger or sadness, so this will have to do. "You were on that freighter too."

"Yeah," he leans, heavily against the wall opposite her, next to the buttons; the seventieth floor is rapidly approaching, but she watches him press the button for the next floor, stopping them abruptly once more. "A lot of things happened on that island that didn't make a whole lot of sense."

At first, she thinks he's got more to say, but the doors slide open and he slips through them with nothing more than a nod in her direction, and it isn't until they close that she realizes what he meant.

He's telling her not to believe it until she has proof. Don't just assume that the dots connect.

A ghost is telling her that there's still hope.

By the time she comes to her destination, she's managed to convince herself it's nothing more than wishful thinking. On both counts.

(here's a story for you ��" she misses her husband, in more ways than she has words to express, both in English and Korean, but there are days when she thinks about Michael's lips inches from hers, about a fake driver's license plucked from the dirt, and secrets she had no intentions of telling, and her heart seizes in her chest, just a little)

 

***

 

(This is in between)

\---

"You live in Los Angeles?" His question is cautious. The past few weeks they've learned so much about each other, about personalities and behaviors, but somehow they forgot to cover the basics: last name, age, place of residence.

Michael's eyes flick up; he's forgotten these things too. He corrects, "New York City."

The possibility of a connecting flight had all but slipped her mind. "I have always wanted to go there. The pictures I have seen are breathtaking."

"It's great at night. When everything's lit up." He offers, and he's studying her but she can't quite bring herself to look at him right then, instead focusing on the soft cotton shirt on her hands, thankfully unstained. "You should go, when we get out of here."

It isn't to the point yet where all that last statement garners is a laugh. It's still early. "Perhaps."

There isn't a lot of hope for that in her voice. If nothing else, at least she's being truthful.

\---

The night before he leaves on the raft, she comes back to her tent to find a note in his handwriting. There is an address she doesn't recognize.

His address, she realizes after a moment, from a life they've been away from for far too long.

\---

Their lips meet this time, and she leaves with a hand on his arm, eyes that meet, trying to wish him luck and apologize for all the things that she might want to say but simply won't.

The raft sails within the hour.

 

***

 

(This is sometime else entirely)

\---

Nothing's felt right since that flight. Since her feet hit the ground, unsteady and all at once confused.

She blames it on falling asleep on the flight and waking with a headache.

Two days later, Jin tells her that they aren't going home, that he's done, that they're done, with that life.

It's the first time in almost a year that the smile she gives to him doesn't feel at all forced.

\---

Somehow, they end up in New York City. She's always wanted to go, and it's a nice place to get lost in. The anonymity serves them well, and there's money, probably tainted with blood, but she doesn't ask questions. She's gotten so good at that with Jin that it's only second nature for her by now.

Her fourth day there, she nearly runs headfirst into a man, veering back into pedestrian traffic after pausing to look into a store window.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the man says, helping her pick up the stuff that's spilled out of her bag. He's handing her the small silver compact that she carries when their fingers meet and she gets a good look at him.

Sun could swear that she's seen his face before, somewhere.

"You okay?" He asks, a sign that she stares at him a little too long, and she nods her head quickly, straightening up to her full height, holding her purse close to her body.

"Yes, thank you," she replies, "I am sorry, I was not looking where I was going."

"It's fine. No problem." He frowns, even as he says it, and it's her turn to avert her eyes, uncomfortable under his gaze. "Do I know you?"

She allows herself a small smile. "Have you ever been to Korea?"

The man laughs. "No, I definitely have not been there."

"Then no," she says. She should just leave it there. She would if he didn't look familiar to her too, if that didn't strike her as so odd, as too much of a coincidence. "You look familiar too."

"I do?" He almost sounds pleased. Like it meant he wasn't imagining things. "Are you sure…"

"I am sure. I have never even been to this country until this week." She says, answering the question she somehow already knew the ending to. "Maybe we have seen each other on the street."

"Or the subway."

"Or the subway," she echoes. There are hundreds of people that have passed her on the street, more so on the subway -- infinite explanations for why they remember each other. These are easy answers.

"Anyways, I should go. I have to meet up with my son." He explains, gesturing off towards her left. "Maybe I'll see you around."

"Probably," she says, because chances are they will run into each other again. This is already the second time.

He walks away, nameless on the streets of New York, and by the time she realizes her oversight in not asking for his name, he's already too far ahead of her, and she has this feeling in the pit of her stomach, certain and undeniable, that they will meet again.


End file.
